A Morning of Domesticity

(THAT MEANS SCURRYING ROUND THE KITCHEN like a blue-arsed fly, cleaning up to you!) yes I turned up the radio to top volume (I don't know why but I nearly always listen to talk stations) so Radio 4 Extra was blaring out The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe with Lucy meeting Mr Tumnuss under the snowy lamppost... then a boring phone-in without Vanessa Feltz on BBC London and then stuff to do with people being at risk of 20 years in a labour camp for not crying hard enough over the death of the aptly named "Kim Jong ILL" in North Korea. Over this time I filled an entire black sack with rubbish including at least five nearly-full cartons of milk and cleared a table top of paperclips, women's eye makeup, Vaseline lip gel and glass ashtrays. I was about to wipe it down with newspapers to clean it when I found a picture of Sunshine or Sweetie, one of the pair of Chinese pandas that have been lent to a Scottish zoo for 17 years, the tubby furry had a stick of bamboo in its mouth and just made you want to poke it in the tummy and twist those black ears round and round!

I'm so glad the "festive tide" is past us. Now it's New Year's Eve, which I haven't done for 9 or 10 years and only ever enjoyed when I was high on Ecstasy which says a lot about New Years if you require mindbending drugs to enjoy it. Then again I was at a psychedelic trance party and you require mindbending drugs to get into the groove there too so... ho-humm. All this was so very many years ago. I just wish I could kick the drugs I still occasionally take now. Even Valium is bad. I know it's nowhere near as bad as taking heroin, but I'd rather take neither. Do you know the one decent Valium dealer I know of via a friend (I also happen to know his mother) sells a minimum £20 bag. Just like a lot of heroin dealers! 20 blue (10mg) Valium for £20. The only drugs I have clinical need of are the occasional sleeping pill ~ as longterm readers will know I go through periods where I simply do not sleep. Usually I am manic and high or manic and exhausted at these times. I also get occasional panic so I started taking Valium for that over the summer. I had a near panic-attack at the Nutter Club (dual diagnosis drugs and mental illness meeting) I used to go to (where nearly everyone was bipolar, I might add and 50% of bipolars admit to their doctors to indulging in illegal drugs which means the number actually having used them must be far higher. Interestingly nearly all the street drugs tweak the same three chemicals ~ serotonin, dopamine and noradrenaline aka norepinephrine ~ that are activated in manic episodes, are known to go haywire in psychosis and are probably at low levels in depresssion which is why antidepressants are occasionally categorized according to which of these three chemicals they tweak. Antidepressants can actually precipitate mania in susceptible individuals, which is why when I took Prozac I was constantly being told to calm down. One girl, who had a manic-depressive mother and sister said I was acting "manic". I did calm down... about four weeks later. And took Prozac very irregularly after that as it just made me so agitated sometimes I literally could not even sit in a chair I had to pace pace pace. This is the start of my bipolar symptoms, back in my mid 20s when my diagnosis was actually chronic fatigue syndrome. I heard a fascinating description of that condition on television last week when a former sufferer said it's due to the brain being over-activated, hence the extreme tiredness yet inability to sleep at night. I definitely had CFS and wouldn't wish it on anyone. In a way it's worse than severe depression because severe depression is taken seriously by psychiatrists whereas a person cabbaged by "M.E." (as CFS used to be known) would probably still to this day be treated as a neurotic by certain members of the medical profession. One characteristic CFS sufferers are said to have in common is a tendency to push themselves past the point of exhaustion even BEFORE they become ill. They work hard and play hard. They are not the type of people who lie down to take rests before an afternoon of activity. Yet when you have this horrible condition you absolutely have to spend your energy like a person spends money on a tight budget and you have to lie down and close your eyes and it actually gets so bad you can't even watch television because it's all there in your face. This terrible world. Glaring at you. That's what they call photophobia. Oh those were the days. My early twenties. Totally messed up by an illness many people don't even believe exists. Not even I believed it existed because it was me and I had no rights to be ill. I still had to push push push even though I'd already pushed so hard I'd broken. Not one of my friends ever truly gave any support. Except perhaps one, who did it in a subtle way. Then one day someone I'd only just met, who'd asked me about myself ~ and we were on Ecstasy after a huge party and so talking intently ~ said to me Your life has been ruined by this thing. And I cried because that was the one person. The one single person who ever listened to me, understood me and belived me.

Now I have a new idea for the future. Something I'm going to do that I could make good money out of. But it's a business requiring start up investment. I would need £5-10,000 so how I'm going to make that I've no idea. Maybe I should get writing the children's books. I know it's not the gateway to a fortune but I heard you get about £3000 in advance per book. So if I wrote 4, I'd have my money. Oh yeah but there's tax, agent's fees and VAT. OK maybe if I wrote ten books I'd have my money. But I'm determined to do this business idea. It's a magazine I want to publish and I'm sure people would buy it. So that's my wish that can and will come true. My family will remember that as I grew up I'd run to my parents with "business ideas". I was full of them. I even daydreamed of becoming a property developer. Aged 10. People don't understand me. Just because in the illegal world of drugs I'm unwilling to get deeply involved, they think I'm either soft or stupid. I'm just the type of person who likes to do things above board and to know that what's mine is mine and that the Proceeds of Crime Act ain't gonna take my plasma TV away. Know what I'm saying?

Well I'll leave y'all on that note. Have a very Happy New Year everyone. Here's to a fantabulous 2012!!




Illustrated: I love pandas and Freesat is coming! (Without the Plasma TV (for now)).


HARDCORE TECHNO VOL 5

Slept/drum & bass/jungle/hardcore/cleaning/shopping/etc

I THOUGHT I WAS running out of energy, having spent most of the night awake, then pinging down the chemist for my methadone, then going home, then having a black coffee for energy (physically tired), then another coffee, then having the most fun cleaning I've ever had in my life. Then feeling physically like I was on speed. Then feeling like I was going to have a panic attack.

Physically exhausted, I put myself to bed, saying "you are ill, and you are mentally ill, lie down, this will pass" ~ so I slept the expected two hours till it sounded like Loose Women or Doctors was on (different channels; couldn't have been both) ... I put the covers over me like a tent and slept some more, aching all over and genuinely feeling ill. Then I got up feeling so hungry I was sick. I seem to have lost a stone in weight: or the scales I found on the street were inaccurate. I've no idea. [One stone is 14 lbs or about 6.5kg.]

This evening I did some irritating little things I had to. Then shopping. Morrisons supermarket. Tex Mex pizza. Best ever. The self service till was like a robot at a hardcore rave. Please please scan (an) the next itemplease scan WAIT FOR AN ASSISTANT!!) lots of fun. And that pizza is amazing. I only had chips (which are Iceland American style curly fries (do they actually have curly fries in America? These are lovely). Then Holby City (hospital drama) came on. I missed EastEnders.

I'm scanning the radio for decent pirate stuff. The drum and bass they're playing sounds a good 17 years old! Proper Ragga Jungle. That's what I'm looking for.

Drink is down to 2 cans at 7.5% ABV ie 1 litre. It's up to 85p a can! Will this torment never cease??!! Nah, don't wanna be a drinker all my life. The alcohol is GOING!

Now I have to not drink coffee, which I appear to be hypersensitive to. I mean this was full on speeding on TWO cups normal one heaped teaspoon. Coffee has never been quite that strong before. I mean, this was physical, hence the anxiety. The highest hyper highs I have had have been totally out of sync with any coffee drinking. E.g. the Mental Hospital Day ~ hadn't had a cup for five hours. Had only had one or possibly two. Don't need caffeine. Nicotine has to go as well. Cigarettes are a terrible poison. Why should I be dependent on outside drugs to poison myself.

Now I have to finish what I barely started that is clearing crap I don't know what is relevant or not. No I'm not allowed a flamethrower, which would make clearing up far easier. Yeah yeah highly irresponsible I know so it's boring old chucking out. Let me indulge a fantasy once or twice. So now the hunt is on for Proper "Old Skool" as they call it to make me feel ancient (ie hardcore rave 1991, 1992) or Ragga Jungle (probably won't find that) or ancient sounding but probably modern rapid drum & bass with an overgrown schoolboy running out of rhymes on top.

Traaaaaaaa!!!! How are y'all. See I'm not irritably ranting tonight. Clean clean clean and cleaner. Clean me clean up. Live a clean life. Clean and Serene. That's me goal ;-)



21:29 London Radio: Eh, the Greek stuff ain't bad...
01:22 hrs Love FM Live .com (lovefmlive.com) good garage after midnight

A degree of competence is required ...

MY EMAIL GOT READ OUT ON THE BBC (AGAIN!)

Anne Diamond, former presenter of breakfast TV, was standing in for Vanessa Feltz who's on her hols. I've phoned in and spoken to Anne Diamond before now and have to say she's very engaging. I can see why she's such an illustrious track record in presenting... Anyway here goes. A level results were out today. The conversation yesterday (on BBC London radio 94.9) was about young people going to university and the extortionate cost of this:

Good morning Anne
In days gone by ~ generally speaking ~ a degree was was a luxury. Three years off in which to delve into a subject of personal interest. The resulting degree proves to future employers that you're intelligent enough and have the sticktoitiveness to achieve a bachelor of arts or science.
With the exception of some science subjects and perhaps law, the degree never was meant to "qualify" you for anything in particular.
The problem nowadays is that with so very many young people going to university, a degree no longer sets you apart. As far as I can see, in most cases it merely gets you into debt.
In my day~ two decades ago ~ the standing joke was "What do you say to a sociology graduate? Burger and fries please." Change that to "media studies" and you're bang up to date!
Nearly 20 years ago I read modern languages at uni, but sadly had to drop out due to health difficulties. Knowing what I do now, I would advise a young person to take a vocational course with a clear career goal at the end of it, or to do languages. At least languages are useful and open up opportunities to work abroad.
I would dearly like to go back and finish my languages degree, but this time I'm working on getting my German fluent enough to get on a mother tongue German course actually in Germany ~ where tuition fees, incidentally, are a fraction of what they are here.

The health problems that forced me to drop out were basically depression. I was signed off an entire term on medical grounds at one point. When I left, I was coming to a point where I had to go to Berlin ~ a year to which I'd really have looked forward, if I'd only been in my right mind. But I was not in my right mind at all. Taking a year out or "intercalating" was not an option as I had no means of support and the DSS did not at this time pay benefits to anyone who was a registered student ~ whether actively studying or not.
All modern languages courses require a year out in the appropriate country. The only course I've ever come across that doesn't is Burmese at SOAS. The Burmese language has the world's most beautiful system of writing. And a degree in Burmese ain't gonna be any less useful than one in English literature or sociology, is it..?.For obvious reasons, a year spent in Burma is not too practicable.
And it was indeed the idea of doing a German degree again that got me reading and blogging in that language. I remember my former counsellor, who'd done BA French, informing me it was quite normal for degree students to rely on English translations when doing European literature. Which I found truly pathetic. (I thought it was just me and my dreadful command of languages who was reduced to this, but apparently not at all...)
So I decided if I ever did go back I would know German well enough to surf through all books in the original first time around. And no reference to any translation. At all. Ever ...


ENYA: EXILES
I've found this tune going round and round my brainbox of late. Cold as the northern wind and December mornings ... It matches my mood ... For a couple of weeks now I've had an unaccountable autumnal feeling, despite it still being "summer". Summer is over for me. Darkness surrounds us. I feel it. O, how I feel it..



COMPETITION ANSWER:
No prize, except the satisfaction of knowing how knowledgeable y'are... the squiggles are GABELSBERGER SHORTHAND in the German language. Unlike traditional English language systems which are geomatric (Pitman, Sloane-Duployan) or cursive-geometric (Gregg), Gabelsberger's method employed a full shorthand alphabet (as the hieroglyphic-looking Teeline system does in English), giving the squiggly appearance. It has been praised for having "a beauty of form and outline that is unsurpassed". it can also be squiggled, so it is claimed, at speeds of up to 500 syllables per minute, which ain't bad!

Hot, exhausted day

IT WAS 28 DEGREES CENTIGRADE TODAY. For London this is hot. I'm sweating like a swine. It's ten minutes to ten at night and only just getting dark. High summertime!

I'M STILL EXHAUSTED. I slept nearly all night; then what do I do but spend half the day asleep from sheer exhaustion too!

I wish I had something interesting to post. Not really. Flapper the wood pigeon appears to have upped and left. I think he is having an affair.

My friend's dog, who is so elderly he looks like a little silver-grey donkey, has had an operation. Every time I see him he's in his basket with the most forlorn expession on his face. I have never seen a doggie look so sad. I think he is in pain. I hope he's OK.

I heard a radio feature today called Home Thoughts from Abroad, where the BBC take London-based correspondents from the foreign press and give them open mike to hold forth on any aspect of life in the UK that interests them. Today's broadcast, by die Zeit journalist John F Jungclaussen basically outlines the reasons why I want out of Britain. That we are becoming ever increasingly authoritarian and less and less free.

If you want to hear it you can listen online (from anywhere worldwide), click here.

Deutsche-in-London.net review of programme.

Keywords/Schlüsselwörter: exhausted verbraucht; sheer exhaustion absolut Erschöpfung; wood pigeon Ringeltaube; to appear erscheinen; to up and leave abhauen; elderly ältlich; donkey der Esel; basket der Korb; forlorn öde; expression der Ausdruck; hold forth sich über etwas auslassen; broadcast Sendung; authoritarian autoritär

Doggies down the park...

I MET three lovely/cute/furry trotter dogs ... One, a tiny mop-head mongrel terrier like the one in the photograph was having a ping along the side of the canal. He wouldn't come when called as was more interested in sniffing odours of lady doggies on clumps of dandelions... I didn't notice he was there till I glanced up from my Sun newspaper to see the tiny trotter standing at my feet smiling the way doggies do. Then of course he scampered off leaving me wishing I'd asked what breeds they thought he was crossed from...
Doggie number two I didn't get a photo of and wouldn't be able to dig up a photo like him. Another tiny small dog, not necessarily terrier. Had ears in the stocks, like bits of black flannel tied to his head, black and white patches all over him and a showdog's bearing (standing square on all fours, slightly forward-leaning), his tail was remarkable, sticking straight up, like a furry fountain, or a handle for grabbing the swine! It wouldn't surprise me if he was a Chinese temple dog cross, or something like that... This little doggie was pinging all over the park. The owner saw me staring and kept turning to look at me, glaring suspiciously because I had dared do a double take on his rambling canine... People!
Finally I was about to go when a shambling woman mutters past me with a young Staff on a lead. I looked at her twice then she looked at me then I realized she didn't just look like my old friend Carla it WAS her. We got talking for ages as Bobby the dog went pigeon-chasing. Carla's boyfriend has just run out on her so she was all over the place in tears. At first I asked whether it was hayfever and she just cried more.
At one point her dog shot off like a heatseeking missile... not after the pigeons but after another dog so far away it was barely a speck to us... thankfully on the other side of a chainlink fence because Bobby was barking his head off. Then Carla yelled Bobby, BOBBY! ~ To my astonishment the doggie-missile came rocketing back and ran round Carla waging his tail. "Come back to Mummy, that's right, that's right," she said. When I expressed surprise that her dog actually obeys her because so many people seem unable to handle their pets she said "oh I can't do scatty dogs".
Then we got talking about rottweilers and staffs and akitas and mop-head terriers and she said "yeah: they're much more faithful than PEOPLE. At least they're loyal."
She also told me there are now rehabs that will take in tiny terriers etc. Not because the furries have been shooting up gear but because their owners have.
Well that's an interesting idea. But I'm not sure I can have my doggie now. What would the poor swine do when I went to college? Run up and down yapping in the corridors of Higher Euro-babble as I locked myself in the simultaneous translator's booth? You gotta consider these things, and that's one big reason why I didn't just run out and get a puppy the second the idea grabbed me (and it certainly grabbed me as y'all know)... I knew I'd always intended to travel in the future. Travelling with a doggie does cut down one's options on what to do, where to stay and all...

The computer's resonating with the most amazing ambient techno direkt aus Deutschland! ~ thanks to live-streaming from Deutsche Funk's DRadioWissen station... I'm rock and rolling at 3am:~ luvverly!
Funk means broadcasting. They don't call themselves Funk because they are funky... they just happen to be Phunkey as well!

Deutsche Funk Startseite: http://www.dradio.de/dlf/

PS: That doggie pictred top reminds me of a Coronation Street actor... he played some kind of writer or poet... can anyone remind me of the actor or character's name..?

NOTE TO SELF: Deutsche Welle www.dw-world.de/dw/0,,265,00.html

RE languages, I think I've caused confusion. Language competence is most commonly graded with the CEFR scale, running from A1 (most basic) through A2, B1, B2, C1 to C2 (near-perfect). According to CEFR, I have German to roughly B2 and would aim for C1 in order to get on the course; French is about the same. So far I've focused on reading books, magazines and websites. Though I talk about "learning" I do already speak well enough to go and live abroad. But for academic study I need to brush up on the written language and grammar.
Dutch I can already read well enough to understand the gist of newspaper articles, websites etc ~ basically because it's so similar to German. If I put in the work I should be able to express myself at A1 within a few weeks. To get on a course I'd aim for C1 competence.
So I'm not "learning three languages" I'm brushing up two and starting a third from scratch...
CEFR Scale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Framework_of_Reference_for_Languages

City Lit is the best place to go for language evening classes ~ they offer 20 languages.
I have to be careful about using up government funding, but it looks like I could go for level 5 classes German and French
City Lit prospectus www.citylit.ac.uk/resources/Languages_summerguide2010.pdf
City Lit "what level?" www.citylit.ac.uk/courses/languageassessment

Digital Radio

MY MUM said she was buying me a birthday present. I am now 38 years old. This is far too old to be a junkie. But anyway we went through Tesco's electrical department and picked out a cheapie CD player plus (what I really wanted) a digital radio.

The FM dial in London is so jam-packed with pirate stations playing outdated early 90s drum-&-bass I find it literally impossible to get a signal on the speech stations I actually like.

Nobody uses satellite radio in this country. In fact I have never seen (or even heard of) a set on sale, though I've heard a satellite called Hotbird does broadcast to Europe. What I got was DAB, which offers crystal-clear reception subscription free from local broadcasters on about 50 channels ~ though there's apparently space for loads more. Unlike ordinary FM radio, DAB broadcasts come via a "multiplex" where the signal on one frequency, eg 220 mhz is divided into 8 or more stations, making pirate DAB broadcasting a tad too technically complexicated for the average drum-&-bass towerblock hoodlum.

The radio pirates install their FM transmitters at the top of residential towerblocks and broadcast practically anywhere they please on the FM dial. Sometimes you can just about get talk radio but with a ceaseless pulse of dfff-dfff-dffffff sub-bass. Other times the DJ's voice comes shamelessly through on top, interjecting phases like "rewind selecta" and "big up da blah-de-blah-blimblom" (their mates). There's supposed to be a taskforce tackling these illegal broadcasters, who use random flats in the area (with another, low-power frequency as link) but they never seem to go away for more than a day or two. You can usually tell which is and isn't strictly "legit" because pirate stations broadcast in mono ~ so they don't light up the red stereo light. I'm all for freestyling on the radio waves don't get me wrong. I just find it annoying when they're decimating the BBC. Personally I think the legal broadcasters should all switch to digital and leave FM for anybody who wants a go. But apparently there's a problem because car manufacturers usually install AM/FM-only radios in keeping with pan-European demand and a lot of digital-only broadcasters claim to lose money. The latest "multiplex" got no bidders and so the future of DAB in the UK is uncertain.

Meanwhile I'm more than happy with what's there!

It's Bashful's funeral today or tomorrow. Oh, and I'm moving to Berlin. More about that tomorrow ...

VIDEO

It was the Eurovision song contest on Saturday night. Widely derided (here); taken incredibly seriously (in the East) it attracts transEuropean viewing figures of over 100,000,000.

I must have been out of my head because unlike former years (when I avoid it like bubonic plague) I thought to myself "this might be good!"~??!? and settled down with a nice cup of tea. Thankfully I conked out for the first half of the "ceremony" but this is what I remember:

PS If you come from lands far overseas and believe all European pop music is a tacky load of tat, see this before you cement your opinion (it will only strengthen it!!)

NORWAY (Best tune)
I was going to put this down as the best entry musically anyhow. And they happened to WIN also:



UKRAINE (Best visuals)
The singer mortgaged her flat to pay for this elaborate set. I hope she gets her money back:



UK
Musicals composer Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote the tune. Whoever wrote the lyrics ("it's my time, it's my time" repeated over and over) deserves to be shot:

("Royaume Uni" came 5th out of 25, with 42 countries voting...)

My Clean Dream: A Pipe Dream?

This quotation from opioids.com that "long term opium use can cause physical and psychological dependence, creating in the user a craving for the drug and a feeling that life is not worth living without it." (You can say that again.)

"A writer named H.H. Kane (quoted by Jill Jones) reported that smoking opium would evoke 'a condition of dreamy wakefulness... a state in which the devotee feels himself on a stratum above his fellow men and their pursuits--at peace with himself and all mankind -- a pleasant listless calm and contentment steals over him... This waking dream, this silken garment of the imagination, will take its shape and coloring from the most cherished and brilliant strands... and puts out of sight the real and unpleasant crudities of life.' The mood, however, did not last long. 'Then the good spirit of the pipe disappears, giving place to a demon who binds his victim hand and foot.' (Hepcats, Narcs and Pipe Dreams by Jill Jones (Scribner, 1996)."

And I suppose that is my situation in a nutshell. The picture on the top right shows abscess blotches like mine, though I only have two ripe ones plus another three or four dead or dying or shrivelling out.

I have noticed a few times that opiate addiction seems to be more difficult to kick than addiction to anything else I've seen. Crack and stimulants might be far more intense, but I suspect that, like me, most people can rationalize how staying that "high" all the time just isn't possible. Opiate addiction is more profound, in that, like a Persian rug, it unlerlies all you are and do in life. It's only when you try to detox and stop that you realize the rug has been pulled from under you and you're freefalling like a raindrop in a universe of terror.

What on earth I was on about yesterday I have no idea. All those links to drug porn. Why? I certainly was not "high". Yes I had been trying to be clean and had fallen (yet again); that's all I seem to be good at, falling. (Boo-hoo!)

Last week, I had attempted some renunciation of my former ways, but was not successful, as per usual. I just found myself maudlin, miserable and so bleak that, as I said, I could barely be bothered with getting out of bed, so I did not bother.... blah blah... time has passed and now it's today...

My mind is focused on my book, a complicated, fictional, tale of human nature. My attempted "memoir" writing fell flat as no creativity is involved and I found writing page after page after page about nothing but me me me me me excruciatingly dull. Also I was forced to delve into possible reasons behind my old behaviour, plus certain alternative pathways for my old life showed up. I was none to happy to see these roadways spotlighted so long after I had inexorably passed them by.

Last night I got bored and played hamsters. They have a posh new plastic tube (very nibbleworthy) plus an up-ended miniature cheesecake container that has provided endless fascination for Itchy et al: poking her head into it, peering about in astonishment. They also now have a luxury piece of chalk taped to the side (well they seem to particularly love the taste and this stick is blue). Spherical now answers to the name "Mrs Tubbymouse". She doesn't glare at me when I use it.

I am listening (online) to the BBC Saturday Play: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich ~ Alexander Solzhenitsin's sketch of life in a Siberian labour camp during Soviet times. For some reason my teenage reading of the book stalled (I used to love things like that. Orwell's 1984 was a particular favourite...) what I do recall is that temperatures of less than 40 below allowed the population to stay indoors and not work. How they must have hated those days that were not quite so cold!

Pie Result/Home-Made Cheesecake/Radio Tubberovski!

YES! MY SHEPHERD'S PIE CAME OUT so lovely I had to be (self-)restrained from gobbling the lot of filling before it ever got mash-covered.

The method I used was this (bear in mind I was SUPPOSED to be making it chunky, with cubed meat rather than ground)...

About a pound and a third or 650g cubed mutton
About a pound or half a kilo potatoes
Three large non-Spanish onions
About half a pound or 250g mushrooms
Sprigs fresh sage and rosemary

Butter
Frying oil

Spices:
Paprika
Mr Brown's Jamaican curry powder
Chinese curry powder
Garam masala
"All purpose seasoning" (glorified celery salt: use celery salt if this non-available)
Lea & Perrins worcester sauce
Soy sauce
Dried thyme
Hot chili powder

Buy mutton in bite-sized cubes or cut by self at home (my cubes were about x3 too big so I had to spend 10 mins hacking to bits with a knife prior to cooking.

Oil the frying pan, fry the mutton bit by bit on high heat till thoroughly browned and "sealed-in"... then chuck into saucepan with a little (no more than 200mls) water on medium heat and allow to boil. Continue frying mutton and chucking into saucepan. Now chop and fry two of the three large onions. When glassy and done, chuck these atop your mutton. Add four large dashes Lee & Perrins (ie about 4 generous teaspoons to desertspoons-full), 3 generous teaspoons paprika, one teaspoon mild Jamaican curry powder, half teaspoon Chinese curry powder, quarter teaspoon garam masala (these do NOT make it taste AT ALL Indian or of curry, trust me: the resulting flavour is spicy but "North African" ie still homely to the European/Western palate. When I'd done this I panicked that I'd gone OTT but paprika aside (2 teaspoons would probably have done) this really was NOT an overdose of spices. And once the headiness of the worcester sauce had cooked off it didn't seem so bad. Wash and roughly chop the rosemary and sage. Add a flat teaspoon dried thyme. Add a flat or more generous (according to taste) teaspoon "season all"/celery salt. Add dark soy sauce to darken: 2 to 8 teaspoons as desired. Quarter the mushrooms and add directly to the pot. Cover, reduce heat to number 2 and simmer for a good hour and a half.

If you need to go out or leave this unattended I would suggest adding more water to ensure it cannot boil dry (too much good food to risk wasting!)... you can easily boil this off later simply by removing the lid...

After this time the lamb was delightfully tender, kind of melted almost in the mouth, despite being supposedly the cheapest, roughest cut (v lean no fat on cubes though)...

Peel and chop potatoes into small cubes. Boil for 30 mins until mashable.

Fry the last of your onions in a little all-purpose seasoninged oil with a little chili powder and paprika (to make delightfully tasty-looking and red)... fry until glassy and well done as these are going in the mash and won't get much more opportunity to properly cook...

Mash potatoes in a little butter and black pepper; add the fried onions and red oil. Melange together. Add some Red Leicester or cheddar cheese if desired, half to potato/onion mix; half to top.

Ensure no surplus gravy in lamb pie filling by upping heat and removing lid (if necessary).

Tip lamb-onion-mushroom pie base into a medium baking tin; smooth mash atop.

Cook in a pre-heated oven c 190C 350F gas mark 6 for 20 mins to half an hour.

And ta-DAAA! You're done! It turned out so lovely I ate the entire thing within an hour!!

***

I MADE HOME-MADE CHEESECAKE this afternoon!

Ingredients:
One x small low fat cream cheese tub
Sugar
1 x lemon; 1 x lime
Digestive biscuits

Ultra-simple recipe: take a 350g (ie small) tub Philadelphia-style (but buy own-brand: just as nice and far cheaper) low fat cream cheese. Low-fat is far more like proper cheesecake mix than high: trust me.

Don't do the entire tub at once until confident in the recipe. Take about a third: dollop out on a plate. Heap out about half as much in sugar beside this.

Cut the ends off the lemon and lime (or if already gone into cut a thick slice, about three times thicker than one for a drinks glass) ... drizzle atop the sugar; fold the entire lot in together, adding more cream cheese if necessary.

Don't bother bashing up the biscuit base: simply spread atop digestives and eat with English breakfast tea accompaniment... it's well yummy..!

***

MY TROTTEROVSKIES went on the radio last night! And made an impression all over London as about three hours later a neurotic-sounding woman phoned up mentioning my "gerbils"... and the host said "yeah I can't remember what they were called {Roborovskis} but he said they were the size of his thumb {which indeed they are: no more than 5cm/2in in length}... they sounded really cute"..!!

So all of London knows about my trotters now. Or the five thousand people or thereabouts who actually listen to graveyardshift radio...

***

I'VE BEEN DRAGGING MYSELF ABOUT half dead all the extended weekend long. It was public holiday on Monday and dismally wet, overcast and damp. How I longed for some mud-splishy herby bluebell woodland to ramble in. Instead I had only the textures of my past life to reminisce over. And to feel dead and wooden. Like a board full of wet-rot. And not even to have energy to drag myself out when I was gasping for a cigarette. Some idiot boy I don't like but ended up engaging in conversation the other day when I snapped at him "I'm ignoring you because last time I saw you you were trying to steal my mobile phone" (which he was) retorted "if I wanted your phone I'd just stab you for it" (yeah as if)... I felt like tracking him down and saying "you still want to stab me? stab me now. I'll pay you to kill me." It was that dismal a day.

Anyway I made that lemon and lime digestive cheesecake today so everything's okay now.

Antidepressants STILL not working even though I've cut down alcohol to bare minimum...

Fertility Goddess Friday...

"GOOD" FRIDAY... Easter... a man on the radio yesterday explained the pre-Christian origins of the "cross"... which represents the disc of the sun interposed with the crossing lines... a remnant of sun-worship, the wider world's version of monotheism... He also made a point that had crossed my head once in religious thought. He was wondering how the cross could possibly have become an emblem of Christianity when it represented that religion's darkest hour. "It's a bit like using a machine gun to represent Jacqueline Kennedy," he declared.

The picture above right is a South Indian fertility goddess; Easter apparently being a tie-in with fertility cults of the ancient world... Ishtar... Venus... and so on.

This "interview" ... I was trying to explain what happened and this is it. When you phone a talk radio station there are professional phone answerers. Depending on whether your point seems worthwhile and whether or not there is time to fit you on air they will take your name and may or may not ring you back.

Usually when you're rung back you wait about five minutes with the radio playing through your handset. When you're put through the host will already be discussing the subject you said you wanted to talk on, then you are put on live and it's up to you to make your point. This time, however he kind of "interviewed" me by asking a series of maybe twenty questions. They were very well put, and because I've got used to being able to discuss addiction I gave what were apparently fairly good answers. Because a couple of people phoned in afterwards and said so. That was what flattered me because one said he'd never heard addiction explained so well. It was, as I say, as much down to good questions as anything I answered "why did you start injecting?" etc etc he went right through it... So that's why I talk about an "interview". I wasn't specially put on as a special guest ~ I just phoned in like anyone else...

Well I'd better go. Have a merry day everyone and don't eat too much chocolate. (Or isn't that meant to be for Sunday? I've absolutely no idea...)

Radio Interview

I PHONED THE RADIO AND GAVE AN INTERVIEW about being an addict... it gave me inspiration to carry on writing (which has stalled. I mean: stopped completely)... I lost all enthusiasm for it. But now I'm carrying on.

As for the radio; I'd called up seemingly hours earlier... then the phone rings when I'm fast asleep and I had to compose myself and just talk. The host structured what I said by asking questions (precisely the right ones, too) which is why I call it an "interview", as that's how it felt...

So these are three resolutions:
1. complete these dreaded memoirs. they've been going on for ages
2. cease using the words "tubby" and "trotters". what on earth someone coming here for the first time would think of my blog i shudder to think
3. keep self and living conditions in tip-top form. evilstein is on at me again (nosey old git: admitted to poking round in there under pretences of "spraying for cockroaches" (so why did I spot at least three last night? he sprayed nothing. just intruded where he is not welcome)

And that's that. Now I have to go. I dunno why but I cannot sleep properly still. so i've been listening to the radio all night (there's some very good stuff on)

and on and on i go... hey it's "Good" Friday tomorrow so have a happy pagan time all you who somehow manage to associate eggs and bunnies with Jesus Christ becoming Saviour to humankind...

*

THIS is one of the finest photoblogs I think I've ever come across:~
Betwixpix2...

Radio Sunday

MOST PEOPLE SPEND SUNDAYS putting up shelves, baking cakes... (OK ladies not cakes: I mean peeling potatoes while the Archers omnibus is on, lighting the oven during Desert Island Discs and sweating away over a hot stove doing ye olde Sunday roast all afternoon... whereas I have made a short and selected (though it seemed to take up best part of an hour) international talk radio guide... really I did it for myself and have Australia's Radio National playing in my ear as I speak (barely past midday here: approaching midnight there. So you can listen to any of these selected stations including the best of the BBC live through your PC simply by clicking your option and selecting "listen live"... except for BBC7 (mostly plays, comedy and audiobook type readings) which asks you to "select player" I use Windows' own player and it works fine on this one...

All that talk of food and I'm hungry... must go! Have a cheery Sunday everyone... unless you're in Australia in which case you'll have 22 minutes left as it's 12:38here meaning it's 11:38pm there (though what timezone he's chatting for I've no idea...) OK must be going... bye!

PS I didn't make airholes in the lollypop jar because (1) the lid was far too thick with binkybonky up-and-down poggled indents in the top in which to stand your lollies for display... I could make holes in the bottom and invert it on them and maybe I will... it's just I realized this will make it useless for the subsequent storing of anything airtight in later days e.g. my spices or something like that well I don't know I have to go my brain feels like a rotten apple core...

PPS: the world's best radio programme in my opinion is Outlook on the BBC world service. If you clickonit you can listen again they always have good stuff on... I think Heather Payton has the friendliest (and Australian-accented, incidentally) voice on the radio...

SONG: Madonna: Who's That Girl...

I Did It!

I DID IT! Yes I did it! I actually went in there and did not bottle out. How amazing! Everyone DID look at me like: who the hell is THAT?? But I ignored their visual jibes and gratefully took a free glass of red wine (a black woman had white: everyone else had boring old orange juice. ORANGE JUICE ~ to go on air? Honestly!)

We got split into groups. My group was the smallest, consisting of a tiny 40 or 50something year old man who is such a regular caller all the staff knew him. Plus a fat couple from Essex, with very Essexey (that is out-of-town suburban) values and opinions. Not a single person ventured to make any eyecontact or friendship with me (as expected).

While the other lot got a guided tour round the station, we were shoved straight in a studio with a mike at every chair and though it wasn't a fluent discussion, various topics, shows, presenters were brought forth. Three of us out of four looked extremely selfconscious (self included). I died on myself twice. Literally froze from nerves; had to fish myself out (very adeptly so, as well ~ if I say so myself...). I knew this was never meant to be live or even live sounding. They only wanted people's voices to mix into different adverts, trailers, soundbites and all that rubbish, so I wasn't fazed in that respect, and as I said I did fish myself out.

I hope they don't use any of my contribution. At the end we had to say each of us alone "this is blah blah blah radio". I put on my answering machine voice and made the fart woman (typo! but she was one) look at me all different...

Then, traumas over we got a tour of the building by the second in command boss at the station. I noticed he was as badly shaved as I had been before I took razor to face this afternoon. I asked all the most cogent, intelligent, diverse and basically spot-on questions so he spoke to me practically the whole time instead of the useless rest of the rabble (I don't know about you: but don't YOU notice who someone's talking to, when you and someone, or many other people are introduced to a person of note..? I ALWAYS do....)

I took his name, got free mugs and fridge magnets. Security (for once in my life) treated me like a human being and not a theif they just hadn't managed to nail (as I usually get treated by security guards)... out on the street I cheerily said "see you on the radio then!" to the fat pair; they looked at me like well we hope we never cast eyes on YOU again but forced sneering snorts of smiles.

And then I trotted the ten minutes to my bus stop feeling a job had been well done.

I got the deputy station controller's attention, I went in the building. I wouldn't be half as nervous there again (specially seeing how causual they were all turned out!)... I didn't ask about internships (asking TONIGHT had never been on the cards ~ I did try to make that clear)... yeah and blah blah blah ~ wahey! I did it!!!!!!

PS THE ANTIPERSPIRANT (badly-needed) body spray I bought smells so pukeworthy that in this netcaff cubicle the overpowering pong is seriously threatening to make me THROW UP...

Washing/Drying/Et Cetera-ing...

POST-BATH PRE-CLOTHES... OK I'm writing this in a hurry... was unable to post anything last night as fast asleep in post-shopping-for-deodorant-etc exhaustion coma...

Many thanks for all your messages of support. I've not been able to check every one yet as at the present moment I'm rather hurried between just having bathed (woo!), washing clothes in the one local laundrette (that's a laundromat to you Americans) with a spin-dryer (saves a fortune on the dryers!) I painstakingly shaved this morning... actually that's not the right word. Painstaking implies care. My experience was painful, impatient, full of mental negativity and physical blood from my chin.

But the usually-surly man at the end of my road said hello to my fresh-faced self this afternoon... plus I look nearly ten years younger... so maybe it was worth all the effort after all...

All this costing me a tenner I would otherwise have donated to my usual cause... feels so very unusual..!

Anyway, once clothes done (my hair washed, face shaved, clothes will be clean and dry including dirty old winter coat) I shall be ready about two hours ahead of time... wow!

I have the address, the main (ie business switchboard for important people not just bigots who want to spout off on air) telephone number and can get there on one single bus plus a ten minutes (tops) walk.

Barring earthquake or terrorist attack I SHALL BE THERE. Prattling in the mike about whatever floats their broadcasting boat...

yeah I still have very %skewed% glasses, my teeth are brown (at least they are THERE; unlike many a junkie I could mention)... and so on and so on. Right I'm off. If I don't dash back some particularly desperate person (well they really would have to be) might steal my clothes from the soon-dormant washing machine!

Video of the Day:
Gabriella Cilmi: SWEET ABOUT ME
Have a listen... this is one of the great songs of the year!

Radio Gledwood¬!

PHONE CALL FROM THE RADIO TODAY offering free red wine if I come in with other prized telephone contributors to go under the mic and testify how wonderful we find the show!!

I took the call in full chirping enthusiasm, saying how much I loved the presenter in question etc, not realizing at the time how every statement I made was a tick tick tick (that's a "check" to you Americans) in the mental boxes of "valued contribution-worthy listener"... I was actually being upbeat in case I'd won a million-pound cash prize. Sadly not. but I claimed I was all up for meeting with other listeners, big fat microphones and some of "the team" at such and such a time on WEDNESDAY. Which doesn't give me too much time to fret about which pair of diarrhoea-stained jeans and smelly holey socks I'm going to wear...

My initial reaction was "I CAN'T GO!" Even when I try and clean myself up I look... well I look like what I am. No contact lenses and lgasses on the skew like a walking %percentage%-sign...

Then I thought why NOT? Obviously make the effort but come as you are.

Then I thought HEY ~ hang on, I could apply for a work experience/internship here. I don't know how to explain a TWELVE YEAR GAP in my employment history ~ except by declaring the truth: that years of illness (depression and chronic fatigue syndrome CFS topped with drug addiction) threw me off course.

Maybe I could vanilla it all out, make it all anodyne and acceptable. But then I thought: hang on, talk radio is about human situations. If I'm used to life on the frontline ~ people ill, diseased, abused, uncared-for, insulted and injured and dying ~ and can meet their tales with empathy and warmth, why should I lie on my CV or resume or application?

As a writer of memoirs, I can hardly reveal all in print, yet lie on my CV and on air, can I? In the end, there can only be one truth, and as the (Biblical, I'm pretty sure,) saying goes: Be sure your sins will find you out!

Perhaps I seem a bit glib at times, a little too ready to spout out all about my disgusting injecting heroin habit. But I'm not proud of it at all. I merely made my decision, many moons ago, to be straight with people online and on this blog... otherwise imagine how it might go? Me making friends the world over under totally false pretences... I'd be leading a double life even more than usual.

Like a house of cards, such fragile situations are apt to come tumbling down at the very first sneeze...

In real life, people see me and know that something ~ they may not grasp precisely what ~ but they realize something's up, not right, quite frankly all wrong... Online I might prattle about hamsters, homes, politics, etc: nobody would be any the wiser. And yet friendships might grow, relationships be cherished... and all under totally false pretences.

If I can possibly avoid it, I'm really not one for living out a lie.

OK tangent over.

Back to the radio. What should I do? Do I turn up to this drinks and "recording how brilliant I think the show is" soundbite evening?

And do I apply for this internship? And if so, how do I handle my past?

Please: I need some experienced advice!


Song of the Day:
Captain Sensible: Glad It's All Over

*

21:16hrs COLD FEET!
I'M TOO SCARED TO GO! I DON'T WANT TO SET A BAD IMPRESSION. I don't have nice clothes (really don't)... no confidence at ALL in my appearance. My hair needs cutting. I desperately need (a) contact lenses or (b) a proper pair of glasses that don't need a hat to sit vaguely straight on my head (that's how bashed up my current glasses are ...) I only TOOK to wearing glasses because of rock-bottom self-esteeem (I feel about 10% as good in them as I do in contacts)... it all feels too rushed, too early. The internship/work experience is a totally different issue: I've obviously set a good enough impression on air; I really feel (no exaggeration) that I would destroy this if I admitted who I was in person and I won't meet the producer tomorrow but some other person.

The two issues:
A) recording praise and
B) applying for work experience
are totally separate. The latter is my focus.
You're all sure I should be 100% frank? I could fudge my career "gap" by saying I'd been travelling and working fleamarkets in Goa and Thailand and no-one could prove otherwise; but as I said earlier, I'm writing memoirs that will tell everything. In the long run I don't see any gain from lying (and hate doing it)... my bad experiences might stand me in good stead

aargh I don't know what to do I'm not dying of pressure to turn up tomorrow (it IS just a thing to record listener soundbites that is ALL) I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't know aaarghkkkhhh! Maybe I will bring Baby Itchy in my pocket. She can bite me for good luck...

Crossing the Water

I HAVE ITCHY FEET. Telling me to get the hell out of here. To clean up, ship out, escape... to give you a clue where, the above illustrations represent: top~ Berlin Hauptbahnhof (their new Grand Central railway station) left~ La Défense (Paris's office building that echoes the Arc de Triomphe (and is further along, if you fly off the end of the Champs Elysées) right~ Berliner Reichstag (German national parliament building, including whizzy glass dome installed by Sir Norman Foster)...

(And the very top two: surely you know!)

Yes I actually want to be an immigrant. And there are two versions of my fantasy: the metropolitan fantasy ~ which is trundle off to Paris or Berlin and set down there.

Or the village fantasy: living in a French or German version of the Archers (Radio 4's "everyday story of countryfolk")... I'm not too sure about the latter as bountiful as the countryside is (central France was amazing: like Britain crossed with Mediterranean weather ~ crickets singing all night, glow-worms in the bushes, giant hornets (yuck!) and luminous green frogs in the river... the weather was a lot more tolerable (and the thunderstorms more spectacular)... I seemed to live on French bread (OK well it wouldn't have been English bread, would it?), soft cheeses and red plonk for three weeks... quite wonderful.

I won't spend ages and ages trying to justify my decision. Just bear in mind I do speak French and German to a stunted degree... in that I did A Levels in both, but a year in either country and I actually would be fluent. Being a stranger in a strange land, so I have found is far less lonely than uprooting in one's own country, where you could wander like a shadow and nobody would talk to you... soon as people realized I was English (soon as I opened my mouth in other words even though I WAS attempting my best accent) half the village were saying hello whenever I passed by. Also I thrive on novelty and I mean it when I say there really is NOWHERE else I think I could possibly tolerate in this green and pleasant land except for London, where of course I already am... London full of drugs.

Yes drugs are everywhere: but I am not the type to travel in search of pharmacalogical pastures new. My using is geographically ultra-conservative. I don't trust people I don't know. Don't take chances. Stick to old friends, old dealers, old haunts... crossing the water means looking at the finish-line not the hurdles:~

Crossing the water is for life anew; not a refusing-to-die abscess-ridden limping-on still-addicted foreign-flavoured continuation of the old one!

I would not even consider going unless I were well and truly CLEAN!

*

OK: I tried 77WABC again (what IS the 77? There is no frequency 77 on long, medium, shortwave or FM: and digital doesn't use frequencies...)... every presenter seems to be a more intelligent version of Rush Limbaugh (surely Limbaugh is the thickest...) I tried ANOTHER email to Curtis Sliwa on his breakfast show (it was mid afternoon here)... in reply to his ranting over how grainy the CCTV pix of that Times Square attempted bombing turned out and how much more precisely the British 7/7 bombers were captured on camera:



Hi Curtis: London calling. {My standard hackneyed international greeting...} I'm listening online.

Here in the UK we have more security cameras by a long way than anywhere else on earth... about 4million of 'em. The average citizen gets filmed x300 a day... though we sometimes feel this a bit of an intrusion on our liberties, you're quite right: when murder, carnage and major events do happen, the police collect not only publically filmed images but stuff from shops, businesses, etc (literally cameras are everywhere here!) and it has got loads of baddies busted.

Great show!

{then, ten mins later; my ps}

(further to my previous message)

ps it's past 3:30pm here... don't be behind times with your security as well. Yes our images probably are better than yours because CCTV has long been a regular part of life here and we have special digital enhancement technology. That's why you see the terrorists' zits!

07 March 2008 15:37

Last Weekend Before Xmas!

SO IT'S THE FINAL WEEKEND before nasty old Yuletide!

Mother Hubbard invited me to her and Dodge's Xmas. They weren't too sure whether Xmas at home was on the cards or whether they were vanishing away was more the thing.

So after a few bad hitches (when at one point, Xmas seemed to've been cancelled altogether) I'm as certain as I can be that I'm going to theirs. I would say "Godwilling" I'm going, but Xmas is a pagan and thus utterly Godless (in the conventional sense at least) festival. The tinsel, snow and lights are pretty, though.

You can see the True meaning of "Christ"-mas on my video today: Stonehenge Solstice Celebration.

No cooker: no heating! Man! It was absolutely perishing last night! Repeatedly I woke up. And repeatedly had to re-cover self with pink-&-green psychedelic blanketting I'd unwittingly thrown off under the weight of dreams... In the end, my head shoved b'neath the covers was the only thing to keep me warm.... And that made me oversleep in... (How typical!)

Did anyone see my "Our Lil Turkey Farm" vid? It was inspired by a feature on the radio where this lady showed the audience round her turkey shed. Wow: the sound effects! Girls laughing crossed with little boy's electric lazer guns crost with mini dogs baying at the moon. (Have you noticed: "baying" is one of my new favourite words!?!?) She herself warned us: don't ever get just a few turkies. They will get under your skin and you won't want to get rid of them. And judging by the entertaining birds on her own farm I could see (or rather hear) why...

Tony Blair, our former (long, long time ago) highly charismatic Prime Minister has become a Roman Catholic. Big Deal. So now he's worshipping Rome. We all knew he was a "Christian" during his decade of premiership (though his fledgling police state policies strangely weren't...) Well I thought I'd mention this but from hereonin I'm keeping my thoughts on the matter to myself!

Many thanks for all your "name the hellhound" votes. The dog is a household pet, by the way. Please keep voting because I'd not have asked for assistance if I wasn't stuck for a decision on the name. Come on! Vote vote vote!... (above)...

Britain's National Health Serviceis under fire (yet again!) this time over the issue of mixed sex hospital wards... and why on earth do we have them anyhow? Even the interviewer on Radio 4's PM show shillyshally'd round the point and blithered about the "cost" of restoring wards to single-sex (which they always used to be, even in my day, let alone my parents'...) So what about the "cost" when poor old ladies are being harrassed by senile 80 year-old dirty old men? Surely whatever space these hospital "trusts" have (and it's all about "trusts" these days, incomprehensible as they are to us ordinary folk...) Why can't someone just grab hold of the each hospital's floorplan and simply chop it up: M~F~M~F? Simple. Only far too simple for today's penpushers (mouseclickers - sorry!) Yes??

Sticking with the news: so-called "low copy DNA evidence" is centre of the latest media cyclone. It's an ultra-sensitive forensic technique that can get a reading from samples so microscopic they're literally dust.

One of the most fascinating articles I ever read was about common old dust: and that's the thing about it; it gets everywhere. So much so, in fact, that it's quite probable that in your home are particles from the 1883 Krakatoa eruption, the Hiroshima bomb in 1945 and even the ancient tombs of the Pharaohs.

And that's the thing: in analysing "dust" from a Northern Irish bomb, DNA came up and was matched to a teenage boy from Birmingham, which is on the British mainland and hundreds of miles away. This boy had come into contact with the police, because everyone who's arrested is compelled to give sample DNA in this country. But he was no terrorist and had never been near Northern Ireland in his life!

Britain has by far the lartest DNA database in the world. Over four million samples! Add to this the four million PLUS security cameras filming our every move on this island and the car- and mobile phone-tracking technology that is being increasingly frequently implemented and it seems to me our silly government has set up the beginngins of a futuristic nightmare police state. Right here in Britain. The supposed home of democracy!


Videos of the Day:
Leona Lewis: Homeless
Jethro Tull: rare promo for Solstice Bells - 1976
Stonehenge Solstice Celebration

***

Dairycow Entertainment Blog

Have a "gander" at these ridiculously multicoloured parrots from Queensland in Bimbimbie's back garden....

***

Oh SOMEONE please help me!
Some blithery-hearted liberals are gushing on Radio 4 how if some teenage terrors are terrorizing you (an old age pensioner) from coming out of your home "the underlying issues should be evaluated, and perhaps a mentoring programme instituted"

No!

Cane them until their socks are clots of blood!

Sorry. Slight exaggeration of my views there but HONESTLY these bleeding hearts I cannot stand them.

Someone actualy had the cheek to say it was "ridiculous" that a child should be prosecuted for stealing a sausage roll from a bakers.

Well I'm sorry but when I was age 10 I NEVER stole ANYTHING from the shops because I was TOO TERRIFIED. Yes! ANY LITTLE S**T caught stealing from the shops SHOULD be punished. I'm not sure about giving them criminal records (which will make them grow up to think "what's the point in behaving, I'm branded a criminal already") but something pretty drastic has to be done. The children in this country are as evil as that slavering hellhound I proposed putting growing, savaging, baying and upholstery-ripping into my forthcoming novel. They are children of the devil. It really makes me wonder what planet these do-gooders live on.
Yeah, if I'd come down from Mars I'd definitely agree with the liberals over the conservative "have 'em whipped!" contingent. But if you have ANY experience of what these disgusting, subhuman little piles of **** are actually like I suspect your views would take a rightward turn as mine have done - and they turned right through bitter experience. Not through some stupid ideology I read in a book!

***

A phunky bush photo
from
The Eyes of Pod

***

DOES EVERYBODY HATE ME because I sound like a Nazi? Well I'm not going to protest too much because that's sad. But let me tell you this (and I'm talking for Britain here, most specifically London)... somehow, somewise (actually, distinctly not wisely at all...) a generation of youngsters is being raised with scant idea not only of good manners and all but more importantly of the morals that underline them.

Stupid Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London, took it on himself to give to this entire generation free bus transport. When they are quite capable of walking. And yet because of Livingstone's idiotic move, the respectable paying public are absolutely innundated by nasty, yelling, hollering, baying, unruly schoolchildren who have no respect for their elders (though they expect respect for themselves)... who do all they can to make us feel as uncomfortable out of place and massively encroached upon and as near-assaulted as possible by this noise-in-numbers that comes piling on the bus causing misery and discomfort to all. This isn't just my view - almost everyone who's had the misfortune of boarding a London bus just before 4pm when the brats from school pile on ...

When I was younger my views in most things were pretty liberal. Now, however I'm not alone in feeling opressed and depresed by the negative plunge our society is taking. This is serious bad news. So when I hear these people piling on the radio to defend behaviour that isn't merely bad, it's nasty. I'm scared. Scared for our future, for with nasty selfish brats like that ruling our streets as they undoubtedly do, that future is destined to be anything at all but comfy and bright...

***

Aargh! Moralizing moralizing moralizing. Ho-hummmmm....

***

The more I think about "her"; the more I want one of those giant Thumbelina dogs.

Oh no! That's a fourth name I came up with there!!

Of course I cannot have dogs where I am now; but when I get a normal home (well, if I ever do) I definitely want a giant black swinesly dog to guard my newspapers and empty tins of beans!!

Late Night & Lost

I FEEL BETTER for having a big hit of B. If you're wondering why the Enid Blyton language below it's to do with me striving to avoid bad language. Becuse I know myself. If I do start that the whole thing will turn into a kind of truckdriver's four-letter rant blog rather than what you see before you: my can you make head nor tail of my Self-depracating Irony-sincerity no I don't think everyone does stylee.

Tonight I'm not posing any questions and I'm not answering anything except what precisely was I originally keeping this blog for? Isn't this meant to be my confessional blog? So what am I doing? I feel myself self-censoring something meaningful.

If I did dig it out, I'm sure it would only make y'all laugh...

I HATE NIGHT-TIME. That "turn off the light and go to sleep because everyone else is sleeping" time. Maybe I'd do better in New York City. Is that really the City that Never Sleeps? More than London? I wouldn't know: I have no comparison. My local shops are open 24-7. The local supermarket is open 24 hours all week; but come the weekend and bizarre Sunday trading regulations it has to shut sometime over Saturday night to reopen 10 till 5 or something stupid on Sundays so the staff can "go to church". As if any of them actually do.

My nearest local pubs shut around midnight or one a.m. One further up the road stays open till about four at weekends, but I'm definitely not in the mood for that place tonight. As I've mentioned loads of times, I used to go partying every weekend. Clubbing on E. But eventually, in the end, when reality (of whatever type) hits you, it just gets frazzling to mind, body and soul. I have too many memories of bleak mornings, chilled to the core, too knackered to walk, stuck on the wrong side of the river miles from home and probably trudging to somebody's house where I don't want to be anyhow to hear yet more techno, take in the herbal aroma of other people toking spliff (because I wouldn't touch one) and keep gum-chewing as my mind continues to scramble on E.

Really, in my heart of hearts, what I need in such a situation is a long hot bath plus deep restorative unconsciousness.

Possibly deep restorative unconsciousness isn't too far off tonight. And besides: even if it's not, the airwaves are alive with kids running their pirate radio stations. They are alwyas good for a Saturday-night laugh, and the dial is choc-a-block with them. We get the best TV and radio reception in this corner of town. I got digital TV through a £1.99 aerial. Whereas most people have to spend £100 on a rooftop replacement (that's what that little star signifies in the Argos catalogue "in some cases aerial upgrade may be required" - you bet!)

If only my brains were less inclined towards scrambling. Have I a project to sit down to? Something ghhhh. (Not like me. The word's escaped my skull.) Something worthwhile to... Think. Think. Well don't think. Thinking hurts. I'm off to read irrelevant things. Providing I can concentrate. (What IS relevant..?)